By Dana Tran |Updated: August 11 2017
Here is a (growing) handpicked list of tools, links, and resources to help you learn more about Messenger bots and how to build a Bot!
Since Messenger Bot is still relatively new and rapidly changing, I plan on adding new content to this list (on a weekly basis). So check back often for updates! Or click here to subscribe to my monthly newsletter!
1. Websites & Blogs about Bots
Here are my favorite 3 along with a few other sites where you can learn more about Messenger bots and the latest news relating to Bots.
Keep in mind, the word chatbot or bot can refer to Messenger bots as well as Alexa, Slack bots, Skype bots, Telegram bot and Kik bots. Although my (free) Beginner’s Guide is focused on Facebook Messenger Bots, I still find it useful to learn more about bots and AI – even if they are on other platforms.
Featuring hundreds of articles, written by 400+ botmakers.
Articles on the latest bot news, AI, tools, tutorials and more.
A weekly roundup of chatbot news, market insights, trends & tutorials.
- Awesome Bots – A curated awesome list of bots and AI resources on GitHub by BotCube team
- Chatbots Journal: Learn and Share all About Chatbots
- Bot Tutorials: Place to learn chatbot development & design
- Chatbot News Daily: Your #1 Source about Chatbots in Europe
- Chatbots Digest – Another weekly digest on Chatbots & AI
- Bot Weekly – A weekly round-up of the most interesting chatbot and AI news
- Topbots – Topbots sources the best news for artificial intelligence and bots for business.
- Botzine – an online newsletter for botmakers and bot enthusiasts
2. Resources from Facebook.com
Watch the 2017 videos of the Keynote and Messenger Sessions from Facebook’s F8 Conference
Keep up-to-date with the latest Messenger news and updates – directly from Facebook
Facebook’s official Help Docs for the Messenger Platform
- Platform Policy Overview – – An overview of messaging rules and restrictions
- Messenger Payment Feature – Information on how to receive payments from people in your bot
- Messenger Platform Policy
- Facebook Commerce Policy
- Developer News – Facebook News for Developers
- Facebook F8 2016 Video – Watch the Messenger Session videos from the 2016 F8 Conference
- Submit Your Bot to Messenger’s Discover Tab – Discover is a new section in Messenger where people can browse and find bots, nearby places, and businesses to message. Only Page admins can complete the form.
3. Featured Videos, Articles & Podcasts about Bots
500% ROI in 3 Days
(from DigitalMarketer)
Listen to this podcast to learn how the Messenger Ad led to a 500% ROI in 3 Days!
Facebook Bots 101
(from Hubspot)
What They Are, Who’s Using Them & What You Should Do About It
Bots For Your Business
(From Social Media Examiner)
Discover five types of Facebook Messenger bots your business can integrate for better customer service.
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- Chatbots on Facebook Messenger linked to increased sales
- ManyChat’s Chatbots Are Getting 400% ROI: Here’s How You Can Too
- Cheat Sheet: All Facebook Messenger Bots Interactions – a summary of all the chatbot elements on Facebook Messenger
- How to Write a Compelling Facebook Messenger Sequence – by Neil Patel
- Top 10 Tips To Build A Facebook Messenger Chat Bot – an article from Forbes written by Vivian Rosenthal
- 8 Reasons Why We’ll Launch A Chatbot Rather Than A Mobile App
- Messenger Bots: Decision Trees vs Webviews – exploring the dilemma of text bubbles vs webviews
- Mixergy Case Study: Chat bot grows sales – Interview with Ezra Firestone
- Mixergy – Interview with Dmitry Dumik, Founder of Chatfuel
- IAB Forum 2016 – Interview with Mikael Yang, Founder of ManyChat (Youtube Video)
- The 5 Most Inspiring Chatbots On Facebook Messenger
- Is Facebook Messenger the New Email? 3 Experiments to Find Out
- A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Messenger Bot – from this site, thinktuitive.com 🙂
4. Bot Mockup Tools
Before using your bot-building platform, you can use one of these tools below to mockup, plan, design your Messenger bot first! All of the tools and download below are free!
An easy and quick way to design and prototype a chatbot
Chatbot prototyping, design & collaboration
A free Sketch Design Kit to help you create messaging and conversation experience
- Design Kit from Facebook – A free Sketch Design Kit, so you can drag and drop your way to mockups of your bot
- Bot UI kit for Messenger Platform – Another free Sketch UI Kit for Messenger and made by Mockuuups.com
- Mocking Bot – A Mobile prototyping tool without a headache
- Botframe – A playground to design bots
5. Featured Messenger Bots
Want to learn how bots work? Looking to get some inspiration and ideas for bots? Then you should go chat with a Messenger Bot!
Keep in mind that some Bots in the list below are custom coded (i.e., it might not be possible to build a similar bot with a bot-building platform). To learn about the types of bots you can build without coding, check out Part 1 of this guide.
Learn how to build a Messenger Bot (created by me, Dana Tran!)
The Adventures of Rogelio Price
A fun choose-your-own-adventure game!
A fast way of asking questions and getting opinions by friends and strangers within a few seconds!
- Chatfuel – Chatfuel’s Messenger Bot
- ManyChat – ManyChat’s Messenger Bot
- Jarvis – A cool bot that reminds you to get stuff done
- Visabot – The first immigration bot, helping professionals relocate to the United States
- ChatBottle – Helps you to discover and share the best available chatbots for Facebook.
- Instalocate – Your personal travel assistant. Track your flight and get notified when it gets delayed
- Sure – A bot for the most Instagrammed food & drink spots near you, helping you decide where to eat
- Hipmunk – Helping you find cheap flights and deals on hotels
- Ask Elon Musk – Chat one-on-one with Elon Musk (the bot) about SpaceX, Tesla and AI.
- Movie finder – Helping you find a movie to watch
- Poncho – Get weather and horoscope updates with this (funny) Facebook Bot
- Kip – An AI chatbot that shops for you and your team
- SuperCop – A Facebook Messenger game that lets you solve a new murder case every week
- MobyTrip – Trip & Vacation planner, helping you plan your trip in seconds
- WTFIT – Identify any object by taking a photo of it and sending it to this bot.
- Christopher Bot – Built by Alec Jones, a 14 year old. This amazing bot helps you remember to do your homework.
6. Bot Directory
Okay – so I didn’t list ALL of the Messenger Bots in the section above. How could I? According to Facebook, there are over 100,000 Facebook Messenger bots (as of April 2017). If you want to look for a specific bot, I recommend using one of the Bot Directories listed below.
Search and discover chatbots on Messenger (and other platforms)
The place to discover new apps, tools, products, and bots
A search engine for bots
- ChatBottle – Search platform for bots on Messenger, Skype, Telegram, Slack and Kirk. (Checkout the results of their 1st ChatBottle Awards)
- BotFinder – A leading cross-platform bot directory and bot development partner finder
- Chatbots.org – A directory of chatbots organized by country and language
- Bot Stash – Collections of all useful tools & resources relating to messaging chat bots
7. Analytics and Other Resources
Congrats, you’ve finally launched your bot! But how is it being used? Below are several tools you can use to analyze your bot’s performance to improve your bot’s experience.
A conversational analytics tool – identify bottlenecks and increase engagement by finding out your users’ best re-engagement times.
Get reports on your users, engagement, retention, demographics, funnel analysis, live transcripts and more
A powerful tool on Facebook – view detailed demographic info about your users and how they are interacting with your bot
- Facebook Page Insights – View your Bot’s spam, block rates, your responsive rate and total conversations (click here to see how to access this page)
8. Bot-Building Platforms
Helping you build a Messenger Bot without any coding.
Not sure which one is the right platform for you? In Part 2 of the guide (coming soon), I compare the differences, pros and cons, to help you choose the “right” platform for you.
Create a Facebook message bot quickly and easily (It’s 100% free)
Create a Messenger bot without coding to engage your audience.
A platform to build cross-platform bots messaging apps
Visually build, train and deploy AI bots to do just about anything. No coding required.
Create and manage a bot to engage with your audience on Messenger
Create media and entertainment bots without (no coding required)
- Typeform Chat – Convert your typeforms into Facebook Messenger conversation
- Botsify – Create AI Chatbot without coding
- LeadFlip – Generate High Quality Leads Using Power Of Chatbots
- BotEngine – a natural language understanding framework that allows you to create intelligent chat bot (currently in Beta)
- It’s Alive – Create, manage and launch your Facebook Chatbot with this free platform
